Summary of Renew Wales projects & key findings

58% of the groups signed up to Renew Wales have not been involved in an environmental project before.

1/3 of projects are unlikely to have happened without support from Renew Wales

The amount of resource provided by Renew Co-ordinators is the equivalent to 3 or 4 Development Officers. Would it have been possible to reach such a diverse audience using a Development Officer model.

In less than 2 years we have demonstrated that Renew Wales is effective at engaging groups and supporting an interesting range of community led projects.

In the next report we will focus on demonstrating the impact of Renew and looking at promoting replicable projects and approaches.

Renew Wales has supported a diverse range of groups receiving support from Renew Wales including

Sports Clubs

Youth Groups

Community Centres

Community Councils

Community Transport Associations

Faith Groups

Schools

St John’s Ambulance

Co-operatives

Social Enterprises

Local Action Groups

Development Trusts

Scout Groups

BME groups

Renew Wales has been involved in a number of different types of projects, such as:

Community energy

Corwen Community Hydro Power is in the early stages of development and is a local group being supported to develop a not for profit community hydro scheme.

Renew Wales is also providing a piece of technical support to Canton Community Gardens. They have received funding to install PV’s but need to resolve a legal issue around the lease of the roof. Renew Wales is supporting them to resolve this.

Community Building Improvements

The largest groups of projects are those seeking to make improvements to existing community buildings. As well as structural improvements many of these audits include a recommendation to increase use of the building, the more it is used the more efficient it becomes.

At Higher Kinnerton, the committee is looking to make improvements to the village hall. A report has been produced for them which costs out the energy efficiency improvements and makes recommendations for priorities. The Renew Wales Coordinator is also providing support to help them access funding to help pay for these improvements.

Awarenesss Raising

These are projects that were seeking to bring awareness of climate change and environmental projects to a new audience.

Example of this are the O-Sum and Sprout project. They worked with a small group of young people to develop an animation on climate change. The group had no previous experience of environmental projects and without the support of Renew Wales would not have been able to produce the animation.

Community Action

These tend to be ambitious projects with several different elements to them. It can include an energy generation aspect, community enterprise and direct action to prevent loss of habitat.

Examples include Maindee Action Group who are tackling food poverty and fuel poverty and have set up a food re-distribution project through Fareshare Cymru.

Friends of Castle Meadows are looking at making this area of land more resilient to climate change through, improving biodiversity, better access through the site and options for using the land for coppicing, food growing etc.

Food Projects

These include community, school and enterprise projects to provide access to local food. One of the interesting projects in the early stages of development is Merthyr Real Food, who wish to establish a community shop. Renew Wales is providing advice and support around management structures and supporting the groups development.

Trimsaran Rugby Club are also looking at the potential of using some of their land to allow local people to grow food.

Transport Projects

Transition Presteigne are looking to help deal with local transport issues by developing a car share club similar to that of St David’s or Llanidloes’ Car Club.

Waste Projects

A community group in Glyncoch are looking to take over the kerb side recycling.

A Guide group in Crymych are looking into setting up a recycling system for the hall they use and are also expanding this to look at their recycling at home.

Marketing and Publicity

Renew Wales is able to support existing initiatives and help re-invigorate them.

In the case of South Powys LETS, a Renew Wales Mentor produced a report highlighting the features of successful local currency schemes. This led to the group looking at a more local model of delivery.

For Bikeability, Renew Wales is supporting the group with their business planning and marketing.

Adaptation

Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association want to be a trained and equipped volunteer force to be able to respond quickly and effectively to the effects of climate change on communities e.g. flooding.

Collaborating

Egni Wales first PV Co-operative.

11 of the projects involved in Renew Wales have worked together to develop a PV cooperative in South Wales raising £155,000 through a community share offer. Seven community buildings are part of a Share Offer to install PV panels, providing free electricity to the groups involved and providing an income for the cooperative. Renew Wales has provided a key part of the support. This has involved completing Energy Performance Certificates for each of the buildings involved, supporting the development of the website and the share offer itself.